I’ve been a journalist for more than 20 years writing about business one way or another. Everything I‘ve learned in all this time can be boiled down to one truth: finance, transportation, marketing, supply chain - no matter what the original subject is all roads lead back to sales.

Vivek Kundra's Newest Gig: Salesforce.com EVP

It is always interesting to see where government officials go after their tenure in public office. Some—many–hit the lobbying circuit. Others, such as former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, who did an admirable job leading Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, not only leave but leave in a blaze of controversy, to join the private sector.

The more typical government sector-to-business transition, however, is a quieter and far less inflammatory journey. That is because almost always they are joining a company primarily as a de facto rainmaker—that is, to go after lucrative government contracts.

That is surely the case with Salesforce.com’s newest executive, Vikek Kundra, the former federal CIO and incidentally, the former CTO for the District of Columbia, which is where I live. I’ve been watching Kundra’s star asend for a number of years, and from all accounts, it is completely warranted.

Cloud Computing, Cost Containment Bona Fides

Kundra is credited in large part with the federal government’s push into cloud computing, a space that is synonymous with Salesforce.com. (Rightnow Technologies, too, for that matter, has made inroads in the government cloud computing market). Kundra also was instrumental in the government’s move to consolidate its data centers.

Kundra first caught my attention, though, when he was CTO in DC. In 2008, I asked him about a pilot project underway between IBM and Linden Labs to build a secure enclave in Second Life for companies to conduct business. Essentially, executives—or more precisely their avatars—would negotiate sensitive business transactions behind firewalls and then rejoin the rest of the community when done. At the time Kundra told me that he was looking into something similar for the DC government. I was impressed: not only was he familiar with Second Life, but he was applying the tech to a government mission.

I can’t image he will focusing on such mundane strategies at Salesforce.com, though, where is he joining as executive vice president of emerging markets.

“Kundra has strong tech credentials but there is no doubt that much of his appeal right now is due to his government contacts,” says Laura DiDio, principal of ITIC.

“Top tech executives all know each other no matter what part of the country they are based and this is especially so in government IT,” DiDio adds. “They went to school together, they socialize together, they marry each other.” (Kundra, I’ve read, roomed at the University of Maryland with Sunny Bajaj, now Digital Management CEO).

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